Episode Transcript
Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, go therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to go teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through australian and international speakers.
And here is today's presenter, Dr.
Barry Wright. Before we begin this morning, I'm going to invite you to bow your heads again as we invite the Lord's presence to be here in a special way. Our dear Heavenly Father, we take it as a real privilege to come into this house of worship this morning on this Sabbath day, a day that you've given to us, a day that's set aside not only for rest but for worship.
We'd ask, Lord, that as we spend this time together, that your presence will be felt here with each and every person with head bowed. So be with us this morning as we spend this brief time together and we ask and pray these things in thy precious and holy name. Amen.
Well, we need to recognise today that the second coming of Jesus Christ stands out as the great hope, the Christian Church. It's the grand climax of the gospel and of the plan of salvation. And the Scriptures show us that the second coming is closely tied to the first.
If Jesus had not come the first time and won the victory over sin, then we would have no reason to believe that that he would come again. Let me repeat that. If Jesus had not come the first time and won the victory over sin, then we would have no reason to believe that he would come again.
However, the Scriptures make it abundantly clear that God is preparing a place for you and a place for me. And this new home will be ultimately on this earth, an earth that will eventually be restored to its former glory. You know, we have that wonderful promise of assurance from Jesus himself.
And these words are found in John, chapter 14:1 3. You know them so well. Let's read what it says here.
Now Jesus is talking to his disciples. He says, do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God.
Trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you I am going to prepare a place for you.
And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you also may be where I am. You know, the second coming of Jesus is one of the most solemn and yet one of the most glorious truths to be found in the Holy Scriptures. It is the keynote of all that we hold that is sacred.
You know, ever since our first parents Turned their sorrowing steps out of the Garden of Eden. God's faithful people have waited for the coming of their deliverer. A deliverer who would break the destroyer's power and bring them once again to that paradise lost.
Now, the following words I'm going to read this morning will give us a small glimpse of what God has in store for you and for me. I want you to listen to the words very carefully. There is coming a day where no heartaches will come.
No more clouds in the sky, no more tears to dim the eye. Always peace forevermore on that heavy golden shore. What a day, glorious day that will be.
There will be no sorrow there, no more burdens for us to bear. No more sickness, no more pain, no more parting over there forever I will be with the One who died for me. What a day, glorious day that will be.
What a glorious day that will be when my Jesus I shall see and I look upon his face the One who saved me by his grace and when he takes me by the hand and, and leads me through the promised land. What a day, glorious day that will be. Dear friends, we have the assurance of God's word that the King is coming.
The king is coming. And what a glorious day for those who have accepted his promises and are faithfully waiting for him. You know, the apostle Paul makes it very clear in the book of Romans 13:12, and he says that the night is far spent, the day is at hand.
The cup holding the sinfulness of this old world, dear friends, is almost full. The night of moral failures is just about spent. You can't hold back the dawn, it's going to come.
And as believers in the word of God, we need to recognise that we are living in those last prophetic hours of this earth's history. And it's time we all woke up. It's important that we recognise that the most significant event of this millennium is soon to take place.
And this belief is reinforced by the fact that Bible prophecy has now almost reach complete fulfilment. Well, what do the scriptures tell us? You know, about 600 years before Jesus was born, the prophet Daniel received from God the interpretation of a dream that he just presented to a pagan Babylonian king. Now, the dream was to outline the procession of nations across the stage of history.
It was to be at the end of this prophetic drama that the prophet makes a remarkable and startling comment. And to understand the background, we need to read Daniel chapter 2 and verses 31 45. Now, you know it so well and this morning I'm going to Read a paraphrase version, because this is descriptive.
But I want you to read along in your Bibles with me if you have them there. And listen carefully to Daniel's report. This is Daniel 2:31:45, and this is what it says.
In the vision you saw an enormous statue of a man. The statue glowed with a brilliant light, and as it stood there before you, it was frightening to look at. The head of this statue was made of fine gold.
Its chest and arms were made of silver, its waist and hips of bronze, its legs of iron, and its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. And while you were looking at it, you saw a large stone break loose from a mountain without anyone touching it and come at the statue and strike its feet of iron and clay, smashing them to pieces. The whole statue collapsed and the stone rolled over the iron, the bronze, the silver and the gold, turning them into fine dust like the dust of harvest on a hot summer's day.
And then a strong wind came along and blew the dust away and not a trace of the metals were left. Next you saw the stone getting bigger and bigger until it became a mountain that filled the whole earth. This was what you dreamed, Your Majesty.
Now let me interpret it for the king. You are seen as the king of kings. The God of Heaven has given you the kingdom of Babylon, the power to rule a mighty army and great honour and respect among the nations.
He's given you control over different people and over also animals and birds. You and your kingdom are represented by this head of gold. But after a time another kingdom will arise and replace yours.
It will be inferior to yours in glory and moral values, just as silver is inferior to gold. This kingdom will eventually be replaced by a third kingdom, represented by bronze. And it will be still more inferior in glory and moral values, even though it will rule a larger part of the world.
The fourth kingdom will be as strong as iron. And as iron can crush all other metals, it will crush everything that stands in its way. But it will be even more inferior in glory and moral values.
And this kingdom will split into 10 parts, represented by the 10 toes. And some of these little kingdoms will be strong and others will be weak. Just as the feet and the toes were made partly of iron and partly of clay, and as the feet and toes were partly iron and partly clay, so their relationship to each other will sometimes be strong and sometimes be weak.
The rulers of these little kingdoms will try to hold things together by intermarrying and by mixing church and state. But these unions will not last just as Iron does not stick to clay. And then all the kingdoms of the world will try to hold things together.
And that's when the God of heaven will set up his kingdom. It will destroy all the kingdoms of this world. But God's kingdom will never be conquered or destroyed.
It will stand forever. You know in your dream, your majesty, you saw how a stone broke loose from the mountain without anyone touching it and struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay. You saw the statue fall down and the stone roll over the iron, the bronze, the silver and the gold, turning them to dust.
God is telling you ahead of time what will happen in the future. This is the dream and the interpretation that you asked for in the time of those kingdoms, and that's talking about the nations of Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people.
It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end. But it will itself endure forever. Dear friends, this is a message of triumph.
This prophecy tells me that God will finally take over the rulership of this world, that Christ's kingdom will not exist simultaneously with any other human empire, and that this kingdom would be set up when? At the second advent. It tells me that this is a promise of restoration. And it tells me this is a promise to provide us with a kingdom that will last forever.
And this prophecy tells me that we are now living in the day of the stone. We're now living in. In the day of the stone.
The second coming of Jesus, represented by the rock cut out without hands, is the grand climax of the gospel. And this wondrous event is the blessed hope of the Christian church. And it's a hope that has spanned the generations of time, right from the beginning and the entrance of sin.
Let me ask you a number of questions this morning. What does the second coming of Jesus mean personally to you today? What are you doing in your life to prepare for this wondrous event? Do you still believe that Jesus is coming soon? Do you still have that blessed hope? And can you still say with your fellow church members in the words of hymn 214, that we have this hope that burns within our hearts, hope in the coming of the Lord, that we have this faith that Christ alone imparts faith in the promise of his word. You know, the word hope is defined in our dictionaries as a desire accompanied by an expectation of fulfilment.
Let me repeat that. A desire accompanied by an expectation of fulfilment. You know, many of us have probably experienced the anticipation of some very special event in our lives and the feeling and sense of excitement that it gives.
And I can still remember an event that took place approximately 70 years ago while my family were living in the little timber town of Cuyahogel in northern New South Wales. The year was 1954. For months leading up to this grand event, the Cuyahoga State Primary School, where I was a grade one student, along with hundreds of other schools and rural communities, had been preparing to join together for a special reception to be held at the casino showground, approximately 30 kilometres away.
The brief visit of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh was the first ever by a reigning British monarch to this country. The response from the Australian people at large was overwhelming and this was seen particularly from those who lived in the Northern Rivers District of New South Wales. And what made this particular visit so memorable for everyone was that it was to be accompanied by torrential rain as a low pressure system moved slowly across the northern coastal areas.
News reports at the time described how more than 5,000 people had waited up to six hours in the driving rain at the Evanshead aerodrome while they waited for the royal party to arrive from Newcastle. The weather was so bad that there had been doubts that the plane would even make the journey. Not to be deterred, the Government of the day had a vampire jet fly the proposed route at 7,000ft or 2,100 metres, in order to cheque the weather conditions prior to the royal plane making its journey at the same height.
It was 8pm on February 9 when the royals arrived at Lismore and there they were met by some 50,000 people who had crowded into the city centre. Many had been waiting patiently from mid afternoon, standing in the drizzling rain. And when the royal couple made their first appearance from a local hotel balcony that evening, the police had to restrain over 5,000 people as they surged through the barriers to gain a better glimpse.
Many of those same people remained near the hotel until early morning. And to cater for these loyal supporters, many of the town's restaurants, the cafes and the milk bars stayed open throughout the night. To cope with the expected crowds, more than 260 extra police were called in and they were to join with 600 troops from the Byron Scottish Regiment's north coast units.
And their responsibility was to maintain order along the proposed route taken by the Royal Party. Buses conveyed people from as far away as Kempsey and 40 daurogy people had to be taken to Casino by private cars after their bus skidded and overturned in the deteriorating weather conditions amongst a crowd of 15,000 people who crowded the showground at Casino. I remember sitting with my class in the pouring rain.
We were right in front of the Queen and the Duke who were sitting on a raised platform at the far end of the oval. And the excitement we felt as a group of six year olds was not to be dampened by anything else. And we were prepared to brave all sorts of weather for that front row view.
And during this brief visit, 60 people collapsed and had to be treated by ambulance officers at the scene. By 11pm that evening, the North Coast Pacific highway was to experience its worst traffic jam on record. 1300 cars were to stretch more than 7 miles or 11 kilometres to the north of the Old Harwood ferries.
How many remember them? Not many. You couldn't go to the north coast without crossing the ferries. And these ferries during the 1950s provided a service to link the northern and southern sections of the Pacific highway and at their peak could only move 70kph over the mighty Clarence River.
You know, flooding had cut roads and a family was killed when their car plunged over an embankment on their return from the royal visit at Lismore. And this rain then was to be a precursor to the cyclonic conditions that were to sweep through that area. Only one week later, the water reached just below the balcony in the hotel where the Duke and the Queen had made their appearance and the result was the Disastrous floods of 1954.
Joyous welcome to the Queen. Huge crowds braved the wet for a glimpse of the Queen. Great crowds wait in rain for a royal couple.
And these were the newspaper headlines that were flashed across the front pages of the daily papers during this special visit. You know, when I look back on what people were prepared to endure and sacrifice so that they could have the privilege of being there to see the royal couple and to experience first hand the excitement and the anticipation of this event. It would seem that we are less excited about anticipating the greatest event that this world is still yet to see and experience.
Unfortunately, with the passage of time, it's very easy for our hope to become dim. And consequently, we need to look to the future through the eyes of faith. And we need to remember that if we are to behold him when he comes, we are to behold him now.
If we are to behold him when he comes, we are to behold him right now. We need to reach out and pull the future into the present. We need to keep before us the wonderful promises that God has given to us.
We need to remember that the consummation of the Christian's hope is entrance into the kingdom of God where we will have the privilege of face to face communion with him. You know, it was to be in the first century A.D. that the apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:12 dramatically described the hopelessness to be found in the human world.
He talks of a sense of disorientation experienced by those who were without God. He talks of people feeling lost, of being aliens and strangers, and of having no hope and coming down through the centuries to our day. The apostle Luke in chapter 21 and verse 26 describes the human condition in words that are starkly appropriate.
Men's hearts will fail them for fear of the things that are coming upon the earth. And this condition happens to a people without hope. And it takes place in the midst of a world where bad news dominates the media.
The irony is that the Christian is the only one that has access to the news that is good. The Christian is the only one that has access to the news that is good. You know, in the Old Testament we find that over and over again mankind prays to a God who cares, a God who brings deliverance, a God who intervenes for the care of his people.
And when crushed by sickness, by enemies, by poverty, mankind has been able to turn to a God in hope. You know, we need to remember that God came to Adam and Eve in the garden. He came to Abraham, he came to Moses at the burning bush, he came to the Hebrew tribes in bondage.
He came to the shepherd boy David, and to the nation of Israel. Dear friends, he comes because he cares about you. He comes because he cares about you.
The New Testament amplifies this understanding and brings it to a glorious climax. And we see this in the ministry of Jesus, representing a life full of loving and gentle deeds. We see his unnumbered acts of care that liberated the body and the soul.
And the apostles thoughts are well summarised in Acts 10:38 when it was said that Jesus went about doing good. Jesus himself in Luke chapter four and verse 18:19 was to say that he that is God has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He sent me to heal the brokenheartedly, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
You know, Matthew sums up the hope of the early Christian church in his opening and his closing chapters. In his first chapter we are told of the coming of Immanuel, which means God with us. And in his Last chapter.
The recorded words of Jesus ring out across the ears when he says in Matthew 28:20, lo, I am with you always, even to the close of the age. Dear friends, the Christian hope not only looks back to the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but also points forward to the greatest event in human history, the second coming of our Saviour in power and great glory. And Paul's statement in 1 Thessalonians 4, 16, 17 makes it very, very clear.
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. And after that, we who are still alive and are left, we'll be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
Dear friends, there's no uncertainty here, only positive assurance. This is an event worth the anticipation and the wait. It's a time of rejoicing for those who have ever lost a loved one, and that's all of us, and who have placed their trust in our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
This is the grand finale towards which the entire history of humanity has been moving right since the fall of man. Do you realise that hope constitutes one of the great unquenchable characteristics of the human spirit? Let me repeat that. That hope constitutes one of the great unquenchable characteristics of the human spirit.
You know, it was hope that kept England alive during the Battle of Britain. It was hope that sustained prisoners of war during some of the most discouraging and inhumane conditions ever inflicted on mankind. It was hope that enabled people to surmount massive physical disabilities and to overcome circumstances that would normally crush the very life out of the soul.
There is a power to be found in this expectation of fulfilment, and we'll never fully understand it. However, we need to accept that this power has the ability to maintain life in every sense of the word. You know, in situations of almost unyielding despair, there is a need for sinful man to cry out for a saviour, for someone or something that will bring that final release from those torments that are seemingly beyond our control.
Now, Bill Griffiths was one person who had every right to give up on life. He had every right to give up hope of ever living a normal life again. It was March 1942, and the place was Western Java.
Bill was a British POW of the Japanese Imperial Army. He had just turned 21 years of age. His life was to take a radical turn when he and a number of other POWs were ordered at the point of bayonet to uncover some camouflage netting they'd discovered by the side of the road.
And Bill knew that he was dealing with something deadly here. As he watched the guards move well back from the netting, and as the men proceeded to remove the material, a violent explosion ripped through the air, hurling Bill some metres away. Now, not far away from where this disaster took place was the hastily improvised Allied General Hospital that at the time was under the command of an officer by the name of Sir Edward Weary Dunlop.
Now he'd been posted to Java just before it fell to the Japanese forces. Sir Edward's war diaries record the harrowing years in which he was a medical officer in the prison camps and on the Burma Thailand railroad. With no medical supplies or.
Or instruments, the prisoners manufactured needles from bamboo and artificial eyes from mahjong tiles. One of his men wrote, when despair and death reached for us, Weary stood fast, his only thought for our well being. He was a lighthouse of sanity in a universe of madness and suffering.
And many of those who owed their lives to him looked upon Weary Dunlop as their saviour, someone who was able to provide a glimmer of hope for the future. And it was into the care of this man that young Bill Griffiths was brought that day. And as Weary looked at the bomb shattered body lying before him, he was placed in a terrible dilemma.
It seemed less than kindness to do anything that would prolong his life. His eyes were shattered in the wreck of his face. His hands had been blown away.
One leg had a severe compound fracture. He was peppered everywhere with embedded shrapnel. He was suffering from a severe loss of blood and was in a deep state of shock.
Bill wanted to die. His distressed, compassionate Dutch nurse said to Weary, if you don't have the fortitude to kill him, I will. However, Weary saw in this flickering candle of life something precious in a world that was collapsing around them, where many or all of them could possibly die.
He sternly forbade any such action and took the illogical decision to allot him top surgical priority and then placed him under his special care. And as the faint threat of life responded, following lengthy and difficult operations, there came and began the awful challenge of his total helplessness for even the most basic bodily functions and the blank wall of darkness and the hopelessness of the future. Bill was only in hospital one month when the Japanese made a decision to close it, sending all the patients back to the labour camps.
Bill returned to the prison camp for the next three and a half years and was regarded by many of the Japanese guards as somebody whose life was expendable. Life in the POW camp was like living on an active volcano, and for Bill it was the same. But in one sense he did it blindfolded, with his arms tied behind his back.
After surviving the war, Bill found coming home to be more of a test of his hopes than ever before. His marriage had collapsed, his business was gone and his widowed mother was beyond helping with his personal care. However, against all these odds, Bill was able to surmount the obstacles of his life.
He remarried, he took up singing and entertaining, along with the support of his new wife, and in time succeeded the famed Douglas Bader as the new Disabled man of Courage. He became the Disabled Sportsman of the Year, was decorated with an MBE by the Queen and became a popular speaker, travelling widely in many countries overseas, including several visits here to Australia. This remarkable man, who overcame a very limited education and appalling disabilities under the initial encouragement of Sir Edward Dunlop, was to become a national inspiration to many, many people.
However, notwithstanding the achievements of men like Bill Griffiths, we need to recognise that hope for many people can be just a blind optimism that says somehow, somewhere, things will work out or that something will turn up to resolve their difficulties. And I am thankful to God this morning that the Christian hope is of a very different order. The Christian hope is different in that it involves absolute certainty, assurance.
It has its origins outside of us. It looks beyond oneself to God. This hope continues even when feelings grow faint and it hopes when reason says it's no longer of any use.
Dear friends, God's promises are sure and therefore we need to listen and accept the counsel found in the Book of Titus, chapter 2, verses 12 and 13. We are told to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self controlled, upright and godly lives. In this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, our lives should reflect his life.
We all need to be ready, for we are told, we know not the hour. Our sharing of the Gospel with others should be a top priority and we should be familiar with the signs of his coming. And one day soon, if we're alive and have remained faithful, we will have the opportunity of seeing that small black cloud, about half the size of a man's hand, appearing in the East.
A dramatic description of this event based on Scripture was written by author Ellen White in the Great controversy, page 640 and 641. I want you to listen to what she's saying here. Soon there appears in the east a small black cloud about half the size of a man's hand.
It is the cloud that surrounds the Saviour and which seems in the distance to be shrouded in darkness. The people of God know this to be the sign of the Son of Man. In solemn silence they gaze upon it as it draws nearer, the earth becoming lighter and more glorious until it's a great white cloud, its base a glory like consuming fire.
And above it the rainbow of the covenant. Jesus rides forth as a mighty conqueror. Not now a man of sorrows to drink the bitter cup of shame and woe.
He comes, victor in heaven and earth to judge the living and the dead with anthems of celestial melody. The holy angels, a vast unnumbered throng, attend him on his way. The firmament seems filled with radiant forms.
10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands. No human pen can portray the scene. No mortal mind is adequate to conceive its splendour.
And as the living cloud comes still nearer, every eye beholds the Prince of Life. No crown of thorn now mars his sacred head, but a diadem of glory rests on his holy brow. His countenance outshines the dazzling brightness of the noonday sun.
And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Dear friends, the King is coming. And what a glorious day that will be.
What a glorious day that will be when my Jesus I shall see and I look upon his face, the One who saved me by his grace when he takes me by the hand and leads me through the promised land. What a day, glorious day that will be. Our dear Heavenly Father, we are thankful that we've had the opportunity this morning to come on this Sabbath day as a community of believers.
Lord help us in our day to day walk that we may maintain that faith in the day that you're going to come to take us all home to be with you, guide and direct us to that end. Today we pray and we ask these things in your name Amen.
This programme has been brought to you by 3ABN Australia radio.
